{"id":5171,"date":"2017-06-07T13:47:59","date_gmt":"2017-06-07T20:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/?p=5171"},"modified":"2017-06-07T13:47:59","modified_gmt":"2017-06-07T20:47:59","slug":"june-7-2017-two-faces-color","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/life-stories\/june-7-2017-two-faces-color\/","title":{"rendered":"June 7, 2017 \u2013 The two faces of color"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n \n \"Fb-Button\"\n <\/a>\n <\/div>
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Blossoming Hope – the yellow roses I painted… in yellow!<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019ll never forget her question:\u00a0 it was at my second festival in San Anselmo 9 years ago, a woman held up a print of \u201cBlossoming Hope\u201d and asked if I \u201chad this available in red?\u201d\u00a0 It took me a second, but then I realized that she didn\u2019t recognize it as a piece of artwork, but rather like drapery or a couch cushion! After all, fabrics in a particular pattern are<\/em> often made in different color schemes.\u00a0 I know she didn\u2019t intend for her question to sound ridiculous to me, she indeed liked my painting!\u00a0 And I get it – red just went better with her d\u00e9cor. I found it within me to tell her in a pleasant voice that I had only painted that painting of yellow roses.\u00a0 Since she wanted a print, with the wonders of Photoshop, I could have attempted to modify it, making the roses red, but I couldn\u2019t go there.\u00a0 Since I\u2019ve made my life with color this is one of the more memorable situations to have shown me how completely subjective<\/em> color is.\u00a0 And yet, we make art and live our lives in a world where everything we\u2019d like to do with color is not possible. We must come to terms with how our ideas about color can bump up against its limits \u2013 and how each of the paints we use is much more than just a color.<\/p>\n

Color is a rather abstract idea.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t exist without something \u2013 even just light \u2013 to carry it.\u00a0 In fact, color really isn\u2019t anything<\/em> at all \u2013 it is a reflection of part of the light spectrum.\u00a0 The nature of the substance it is reflected from is such that it absorbs all the light except<\/em> for the color we see.\u00a0 Color also is energy.\u00a0 There is less energy in violet than there is in red \u2013 which must have something to do with the length of its light waves.\u00a0 Energy varies from color to color as do our responses \u2013 which are as individual as we are.\u00a0 Very vibrant color is enlivening to some, and overwhelming to others.\u00a0 Muted, neutral colors are boring or dull to some of us, while to others they are calming.\u00a0 I\u2019m making choices for some new finishes for our kitchen and I\u2019m finding it a challenge for this color-lover \u2013 there is so much grey out there!<\/p>\n

Adrienne Rogers in our Friday group brought back for me a wonderful book from one of her trips to Boston called \u201cROY G. BIV<\/a>,\u201d by Jude Stewart.\u00a0 Its subtitle is \u201cAn Exceedingly Surprising Book about COLOR<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 For any of you who are as into color as much as I and are amused by fascinating facts and stories, it\u2019s a book for you.\u00a0 It\u2019s filled with all kinds of meanings and associations for colors and our relationships with them \u2013 in all their shades.\u00a0 Did you know that many years ago, pink was for boys and blue was for girls?<\/p>\n

I love this quote from the book:<\/p>\n

Color is like sex.\u00a0 It\u2019s mysterious.\u00a0 It\u2019s unknowable.\u00a0 It never looks the same twice.\u00a0 No two people see the same thing.\u00a0 I once went to China on a cruise ship.\u00a0 Eight hundred of us got off the ship wearing white, because it feels festive and shippy and says \u201cI\u2019m on a cruise.\u201d\u00a0 In China white is the color of mourning.\u00a0 We looked insane. \u2013 Stephen Drucker, editor-in-chief, House Beautiful<\/em><\/p>\n

Within this abstract world of our ideas, inclinations and preferences for color, those of us who work with it have to do so the real<\/em> world.\u00a0 The challenges of seeing, capturing and attempting to re-produce color are threaded throughout the entire art making process \u2013 and they continue when we attempt to share images of our finished paintings.\u00a0 Living with the variation and imprecision in color is a fact of life for artists.<\/p>\n

When we see something as we go about our lives that we\u2019d like to paint, many of us start by taking a photo of it \u2013 and here\u2019s where our color challenges begin.\u00a0 For the most part our cameras do a decent job of capturing color \u2013 way better than my memory can!\u00a0 But cameras really cannot capture exactly as we see; red and dark pink are notoriously difficult to capture accurately.\u00a0 From there our device displays and printers each bring in their own<\/em> color interpretations.\u00a0 With all these variables the color in our images are more often different from what we saw in real life.<\/p>\n

Then there are the paints-pigments that are available to make our art with.\u00a0 It\u2019s a very common misconception when we begin to use art paint to think of the different colors of paints as different versions of the same basic substance.\u00a0 I thought so when I first started!\u00a0 But, the pigments that color our paints come from very different sources.\u00a0 Most modern pigments are created by chemists in the lab, but there are still plenty of them in use today that come from ground up earth and stones – as they have for millennia.\u00a0 It\u2019s not uncommon to see a color in an image and have a hard time re-creating it with paint.\u00a0 I have a big collection of paints in the pink-fuchsia-magenta range, in my attempt to find a certain favorite color!\u00a0 And still there are hundreds of colors of art paint available and I remind myself is that no one ever looks at my paintings and thinks they are lacking in color!<\/p>\n

The pigments in our paints have qualities in addition to color we must learn about in order to get the results we want.\u00a0 Pigments can be transparent or opaque, they can have very tiny particles that dissolve into the water creating clear layers of color \u2013 or they can be comprised of larger, heavier particles that settle out of the water, creating texture.\u00a0 They can be easily lifted or they can stain our paper.\u00a0 And one quality that I pay particular attention to \u2013 they can be \u201clightfast\u201d \u2013 resisting fading as they are exposed to light, or they can be \u201cfugitive\u201d \u2013 meaning they will indeed fade or change color over time.\u00a0 There is so much to know about our \u201ccolors\u201d beyond the colors we see as we paint our paintings!<\/p>\n

So that I can better help those who come to learn to paint from me, I have tried very hard to observe what is going on with the paint and the water as I make my paintings.\u00a0 The thing I\u2019ve observed and attempt to explain is how pigment, as it is mixed with water is a physical<\/em> substance.\u00a0 The amount of paint, the amount of water, and the ratio between them, all make an enormous difference in what happens as we paint.<\/p>\n

I do know a lot about color, I can recognize a number of pigments based on their color, I can see color in color \u2013 such as the green in a grey or a blue in a violet-maroon.\u00a0 I can because I have paid careful attention for all these years I\u2019ve been painting to what is happening as I am painting.\u00a0 I\u2019ve said this before, but how and to what we pay attention creates our world.\u00a0 I\u2019ve created a world for myself that is filled with color.<\/p>\n

I have a real relationship with my paints at this point. I recently put together a new, smaller palette of paints to take on a trip with me.\u00a0 I filled the wells in the palette with only the paints that I use often \u2013 those that I love the most.\u00a0 When I looked at the collection of paints, my thought was:\u00a0 these paints are my friends<\/em>!\u00a0 I don\u2019t regularly provide a list of my paints to students (besides a starter list of student level paints for those who are just setting out and need guidance).\u00a0 I resist sharing my paints because I don\u2019t want you buying these paints just because I like them.\u00a0 I want for you to discover what paints are your<\/em> friends.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A work in progress with samples of some of my paints.<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s no secret I\u2019m inspired by color.\u00a0 Color and the illusion of light weave through just about every painting of mine.\u00a0 I need<\/em> color, I experience it as nourishment and couldn\u2019t imagine wanting to go on living in a world without it.\u00a0 And to make art we need to also learn how to work with color in the world – in our photos and digital images – and in the real substances that are our watercolor paints.\u00a0 I know\u2026 there\u2019s so much to learn \u2013 even for me!\u00a0 And I didn\u2019t even start into the whole idea of mixing<\/em> color!<\/p>\n

With my appreciation for you in my world,<\/p>\n

Cara<\/p>\n

P.S.:\u00a0 I\u2019m offering the \u201cGet Intimate With Color\u201d weekend workshop this summer \u2013 a \u201ccolor camp for grownups!\u201d July 7-8 (Sat-Sun) In Larkspur, CA.\u00a0 It\u2019s a great way to get started with color and with painting in watercolor.\u00a0 No experience necessary \u2013 really!<\/p>\n

Contact me<\/a> for more information.\u00a0 I\u2019d love to have you join us!<\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ll never forget her question:\u00a0 it was at my second festival in San Anselmo 9 years ago, a woman held up a print of \u201cBlossoming Hope\u201d and asked if I \u201chad this available in red?\u201d\u00a0 It took me a second, but then I realized that she didn\u2019t recognize it as a piece of artwork, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-stories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJune 7, 2017 \u2013 The two faces of color - 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